“Hard sun, hot weather, skin pain”: The ethnosyntax and semantics of temperature expressions in Ewe

1. “Hard sun, hot weather, skin pain”:The ethnosyntax and semantics of temperature expressions in Ewe Felix K. Ameka

2. Approaches to language-cognition research

3. Domain-centered approach- Lucy 1997 A domain-centered approach begins with a certain domain of experienced reality and asks how various languages encode or construe it. Usually the analysis attempts to characterize the domain independently of language(s) and then determine how each language selects from and organizes the domain.

4. Domain-centered approach -2 In a sense, this approach “asks” of each language how it would handle a given referential problem so as to reveal the distinctiveness of its functioning; ideally it makes clear the various elaborations and gaps characteristic of each language’s coding of a common reality. The strength of the approach lies in its precision and control.

5. Domain-centered approach- weaknesses (Lucy 1997) Domain-centered approaches are susceptible to several characteristic weaknesses. First, there is strong pressure to focus on domains that can be easily defined rather than on what languages typically encode. This can result in a rigorous comparison of a domain of marginal semantic relevance (e.g. a few select lexical items).

6. Weaknesses (2) Second, the high degree of domain focus, especially in elicitation procedures, tends to give a very narrow and distorted view of a language’s semantic approach to a situation. … Thus the key question for any domain-centered approach is how the domain has been delineated in the first place and what the warrant is for including or excluding particular forms and meanings.

7. Weaknesses (3) Third, this approach tends to create bogus structures. Components of a language that lack structural unity or significance but that happen to be deployed together functionally in referring to the domain are treated as unified properties of the language. Apparent unity is often an artifact of the elicitation process. The remedy is to demonstrate structural coherence on language-internal grounds.

8. Weaknesses (4) Finally, in seeking influences on thought, studies adopting this approach often have difficulty establishing the significance of purported effects, because the approach emphasizes what it is possible to say, not what is structurally salient or habitually said.

9. Is “TEMPERATURE” A LINGUISTIC CATEGORY IN EWE?

10. Are there basic ‘temperature” words in Ewe? • … the vocabulary [and the grammar FA] of different languages reflect[s] different ways of conceptualizing the physical world. (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2007: 788)

11. Fire in Ewe • dzo N. ‘fire; juju, black magic’ • Aƒé-á bi dzo • House-DEF burn fire • ‘The house burnt down’ • Dzo bi aƒé-á • Fire burn house-DEF • ‘Fire consumed the house’

12. Aƒé-á dze dzo • House-DEF contact fire • ‘The house is on fire’ • Dzo dze aƒé-á • Fire contact house-DEF • ‘Fire hit the house’

13. ‘Hot’ Based on fire Aƒé-á me dze dzo House-DEF containing.region contact fire (Inside) the house is hot Aƒé-á me xɔ dzo House-DEF containing.region get fire (Inside) the house is hot’

14. ‘Hot’ Based on fire 2 • The noun dzo ‘fire’ can be reduplicated and suffixed with the diminutive marker to form an adjectival modifier • dzó-dzo-e ‘hot’ • nú dzó-dzo-e ‘a hot thing’ • tsi dzó-dzo-e ‘hot water

15. ‘Hot’ Based on fire (3) • The predicate expressions for ‘hot’ are morphologically compositional which works against their basic status.They can be an input for forming modifiers following normal adjectivalisation processes. • They are salient. The nominalised form of one of them is what speakers will offer as translation of ‘temperature’, namely, dzoxɔxɔ

16. Applicability – ‘hot’ terms Body temperature Ta-wò xɔ / dze dzo • Head-2SG get / contact fire • Your head is hot Object temperature • Tsi-ɛ xɔ / dze dzo • Water-DEF get / contact fire • The water is hot

17. Applicability – ‘hot’ terms (2) Food temperature Dzogbɔ-a xɔ / dze dzo palp-DEF get / contact fire The palp is hot Ambient temperature Ya-a me xɔ / dze dzo air-DEF in get / contact fire The air is hot

18. Fá ‘cold’ - a basic term? • Fá ‘become cold, cool’ • Body temperature • Así-wò fá • Hand-2SG become.cold • Your hands are cold • Ɖeví-á ƒé lãme fá • Child-DEF POSS body become cold • The child(‘s body) is cold (i.e lower than normal body temperature)

19. Cold (2) Object temperature Tsi-ɛ fá water-DEF become.cold The water is cold Food temperature Dzogbɔ́-a fá palp-DEF become.cold The palp is cold

20. Cold (3) Ambient temperature • Ya-a me fá • Air-DEF containing.region become.cold • The air is cold • The intransitive verb fá can be reduplicated to form an adjectival and this adjectival can be further marked with the diminutive

21. Cold (4) • Ya fá-fɛ • Air RED-become.cold:DIM • ‘pleasant cool breeze’ Fa is probably the sole basic temperature term. It is salient, has wide applicability and is extended to other domains

22. Fá in emotion and disposition • When predicated of body parts (metonymically for persons) or as possessed yield interpretations in the emotion domain • Nye lãme fá • 1SG body become.cold • I just froze • Na mía ŋútí ná-fá • Give:IMP 1PL skin SUBJV-cold • Grant us peace

23. Use with social ambience • Mía gbɔ́ fá • 1PL environs be.cool • There is no bad news at our place • Mía gbɔ́ dze / xɔ dzo • 1PL environs contact /get fire • There is bad news at our place

24. Ambient temperature

25. Grammatical structure Predications about ambient temperature are expressed using structures that are more generally used for phenomenological utterances. Such utterances have a structure in which the subject refers to an environmental phenomenon, weather phenomenon or a heavenly body. West African languages in general do not use expletive subjects in such utterances

26. ‘World’ as subject Xéxé.á.me fá World become cold It is cold Xéxé.á.me xɔ /dze dzo World get/ contact fire It is hot Xéxé.á.me tsyɔ́ World become.dark It is dark

27. ‘Ground/ earth’ as subject • Anyígbá fá • Ground become.cold • The ground is cold • Anyigbá dze / xɔ dzo • Ground contact/get fire • The ground is hot • Anyigbá pɔ́ • Ground become.wet ‘ • ‘The ground is wet’(Infer: it is cold)

28. ‘Hard sun’ infer hot ambience Texture to Temperature Ŋdɔ nu le se-sẽ́-ḿ ákpá Sun mouth be.at RED-hard too.much Lit: The sun is too hard Né ŋdɔ nu bɔbɔ lá … COND sun mouth soft TP When the sun goes down … Lit: when the sun is soft ….

29. Bodily symptoms of ambient temperature • Afífiá wɔ etsɔ zã me • Sweat do day.from.today night in • It was hot last night Nye ŋui-fũ ɖó tó 1SG skin-hair reach down I am feeling cold

30. Water temperature

31. Anthropocentricity • Language on the whole, and the linguistic domain of temperature in particular, is strongly governed by anthropocentricity. First, temperature attributes are chosen relatively to several temperature parameters, that are important and salient for humans, are distinguishable by simple procedures relating to the human body and have only very approximate physical correlates (KOPTJEVSKAJA-TAMM and RAKHILINA)

32. Talking about water temperature Tsi-ɛ fá Water-DEF become.cold/cool ‘The water is cool/cold’ Tsi-ɛ gblɔ Water-DEF become.lukewarm ‘The water is lukewarm’

33. Talking about water temperature (2) Tsi-ɛ xɔ dzo Water-DEF get fire ‘The water is hot’ Tsi-ɛ vé Water-DEF pain ‘The water is painfully hot’ Tsi-ɛ fie Water-DEF boil ‘The water has boiled’

34. Water and cultural domains

36. Concluding remarks • Probably Ewe has only one basic temperature term • Expressions for ‘hot’ are complex involving V and N collocations, but which are based on the word for ‘fire’. These partially support the suggestion by Goddard and Wierzbicka (2007) that the semantics of ‘hot’ words are linked to a ‘fire’ prototype.

37. Concluding remarks (2) • Ambient temperature talked about using these ‘basic’ expressions as predicates of phenomenological entities; but it is also inferred from other predicates. In particular predications involving texture denoting verbs and the sun. • Talking about water temperature reveals cultural concerns in temperature talk • Is temperature a linguistic category in Ewe?